Roadhymn
by pyrebi
Summary: It's the sound of the highway that speaks to them now. A collection of vignettes.
1. Sam

These are prompts 1-8 from the livejournal community 64damnprompts. I plan to do the 56 remaining prompts in seven more seperate chapters. Events from the show are referenced through "Playthings," so be warned if you haven't seen that far yet. Most material deals with Sam's thoughts and feelings post-"Hunted." This is my first time writing serious post-Jess Sam, so I hope I do well. Um, I'm studying modern literature right now, so that influenced my writing style for these pieces. Feedback is adored. Enjoy.

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**Roadhymn**

_Prompts One through Eight_

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**1. 2am**

Dark and quiet. Almost (not really but thinking maybe possibly with some work) drifting off. Sound of covers rustling, sound of crappy mattress springs creaking.

"I'm just so damn tired of this."

Don't say anything in response. Don't wanna have this discussion again. Gonna keep hunting, Dean. Not going to Amsterdam. Roll over, get some sleep. Don't wanna hear your voice 'til morning, don't wanna hear anything but lets-get-some-coffee and are-you-gonna-sleep-the-day-away-Sammy-gotta-hit-the-road.

Not different, Dean. Still Sam. Please god Dean stop being so goddamn tired all the time. Don't wanna go evil kill somebody be a soldier be a burden _hurt you._ Just sleep, Dean. So tired, just sleep. Maybe have to kill your brother in the morning, so sleep now. Sorry so very very sorry.

Please just sleep.

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**2. metaphor**

Sometimes it's "My brother's made of steel. He can do anything."

Sometimes it's "My brother's an old man. I've never seen him so close to crumbling."

And he wishes for the times (oh so long ago now, a golden age) when the days he thought the former outnumbered the days he thought the latter.

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**3. sky**

Wakes up when the engine cuts out, rolls his head to see brown leather getting out of the car. Hears the clinking of the nozzle being lifted from the pump. Looks up and sees the grey ceiling, scrapes his hand along it, lets fuzz build beneath his fingernails. Before she was rebuilt, there were ink stains and little holes and dimples in the fabric above the backseat, decades-old testaments to a nomadic youth. They're gone now (so much gone now _so much_), but he still sees them in his mind.

So stupid, thinking his world would ever be bigger than this.

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**4. lost scene**

Sees them when he dreams. Not that kind of dream, not the kind that's useful. Just the kind that make him want to (want to what? want to vomit? scream?) stop dreaming.

Dead dead dead. All dead.

Soothing voice, cool hand on feverish forehead. Never knew it. Maybe knew it, can't remember it. Oh, so nice, so soft lovely sugar-cookie heart-break fantasy. Don't leave, don't leave. Gone in a whirlwind of flame.

Gorgeous smile, more gorgeous soul. Study together, eat together, sleep together. Gonna marry this girl. Gonna keep her close. Love you, miss you, last message in reverse. Last touch was a drop of blood. Never shoulda been you. Never never, sweet girl. Burnt offering to a false god.

Whiskey eyes, molten and sharp and so full of a pain that is finally finally twenty-two years too late understood. Good man, bad man, hard man that loved his family too much to actually love them. Maybe he woulda been a man who played catch at dusk in the front yard if he'd been able to just be a dad instead of an avenger. So many years of hatred for the old man, and things were just starting to patch up because of some goddamned common ground that never shoulda been. Gone too now, and he can't get the coffee stains out of the cuff of that pair of jeans.

Smartass, horndog, hero. Never say I love you, it's a chick thing to say. Always look up to you, even when you end up shorter. Sorry for leaving, can you come back? Not you anymore. Different. Wears your skin, this man sitting so close, but not fooling anyone. Not the same. Lost so very much. So scared these days. Gonna end up evil, gonna try to hurt someone. Terrified little Sammy, and he _needs you_. Come back, please. You're the only one who can. Lost you in some whispered words and a secret you kept for too long. What can be whispered to bring you back again?

Dead dead dead, all dead.

Everyone who matters.

Gotta bring the last one back.

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**5. degrees**

Gotta buy back his soul. Save a girl, earn a bit. Lose a girl, devil's gonna take him alive. Notching his way back up, but one good slip and it's all for nothing. Get an inch, keep the inch. Lose an inch, lose himself. The fall's much longer than just the height he's climbed.

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**6. seize the day**

"Not gonna live forever."

It's funny how the most off-handed comments by a waitress trying to get him to try the rhubarb pie can make his food taste like sawdust. He watches Dean ask for the check, smile a little for the girl. Seem easy about it.

Different, different Dean outside the diner. Dean throws the car into reverse harder than he should, gravel rattles against the underbody as the wheels tear ruts in the parking lot. Gets back on the highway.

"Stupid bitch."

Dean's so pale sitting beside him that he could count every freckle on that fear-pinched face if he wanted to. Not sure if he's glad he wasn't the only one so affected or not. He thinks not.

Doesn't want to live forever. Just doesn't want to die the way he thinks he's gonna.

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**7. opposite**

He sits on the high stool, listens to the gentle tinking sound of his teeth repeatedly catching the lip of his beer bottle. Stares across the table. Pushes the newspaper towards Dean, tapping his index finger on the article he thinks they should look into.

Dean grunts something noncommittal, doesn't give the article more than a perfunctory glance.

They sit for their own personal eternity, him looking at Dean, Dean looking far, far away.

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**8. passions run**

There aren't many opportunities to be alone. He takes what he can get.

He breaks down in the shower one morning. He fiddles with the showerhead because it was obviously made for people under six foot and it's that crappy soft water anyway that makes his skin feel slimy even after he's clean and never seems to rinse the crappy motel shampoo out of his hair. Suddenly he realizes he's sobbing.

It's just the little things that drive him over the edge. He's scared, so scared. Doesn't want to be special. Wants to know what happened to Ava. Wants to know what's going to happen to _him_. He beats on the shower wall, probably scaring the next room's occupants out of their wits. He doesn't care.

Wants to call out for Dean. Wants the one person left in his life (and if he's being honest the most important person ever in his life at all) to help him, help him through this. Dean would never let anything hurt him, no never never never.

Feels so stupid for crying, feels like he's less than a man. Schools his breathing. Doesn't want Dean to hear.

He rests his head against his forearm, watching a stream of tepid water pour from his chin with burning eyes. Feels the rivulets run down his shoulders, his back, his calves. Washes his face extra hard. Doesn't acknowledge the salt tears swirling down the drain with what feels like a little part of himself.

By the time he emerges from the bathroom, he looks just fine. Dean brushes past for his turn. He tells himself that Dean will never know. That's good enough for now.


	2. Dean

Here are prompts 9-16. These feature Dean as the prime narrator. I think I'll switch back and forth between the brothers for the remaining chapters. I hope you enjoy. Spoilers for this chapter are big through 2.10 "Hunted" and very minor through 2.13 "Houses of the Holy."

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**Roadhymn**

_Prompts Nine through Sixteen: Dean POV_

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**9. connection**

Every time. Every time someone dies, someone screams, someone does anything anything at all that might be a catalyst.

Gotta touch. Gotta make sure Sammy's still there. Rough feel of jacket, rougher feel of unshaved Sammy jaw in his palms. Pull down the face, make a careful study. Gotta look in those eyes, gotta see Sammy looking back. Not a demon. As long as there's no sheen of darkness, no spark of yellow, it's okay.

Sammy's looking at him funny, wanting to know what the deal is. Shrug it off. It's nothing. Pack it up, let's go.

Can't tell that it's because every time he turns around, he's half-expecting to see a devil where his brother used to be.

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**10. lull and storm**

Throws a beer to Sam, pries the lid off of his own with the edge of the end table. Takes a long swig, doesn't even taste it.

Sits down on the edge of his bed (tonight's bed, not his; no, never _his_). Reaches down and tugs on a shoelace, feels the sudden release of his foot. Stifles a yawn. Some lady with too many layers of makeup is hocking a vegetable dicer on TV.

Tilts more beer into his mouth, happens to glance at Sam. Sees the furrowed brow, the unopened bottle being rolled from hand to hand. Can sense the conversation hanging in the air. Before Sam's even opened his mouth, he's slammed his heel back into his boot.

Can't stand to have another talk about this, not now. The latest death is still hanging too low. Stands abruptly, heads for the door.

The sound of his name being called is cut off when he slams the door shut behind him.

--

**11. animal**

Remembers being thirteen. Remembers the summer in the cabin in some bumfuck landlocked mountainous state. There was a dog. (_Good_ boy, _good_ dog.) Taught it some tricks. Got attached.

Dog went missing. Came back week and a half later, foaming. Dad wasn't around. Ordered Sammy inside, grabbed a shotgun. Shot the thing twice between the eyes. Didn't even hesitate. (It was a danger.)

Sammy cried for hours. Can still see the dirt caked in tear-trails down the chubby cheeks as they dug a grave.

Stares now at that same face—so different and just the same all at once and it's like he's seeing two Sams—and he feels his breath catch in his chest as he imagines two rounds between the eyes. (The boy's a danger.)

He just hopes Sam will understand, when the time comes.

Understand that he can't.

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**12. children**

"We'll be the last, won't we?"

The question is so left-field that for a moment he doesn't know how to respond. Peels his eyes from the road ahead and takes in the sight of Sam looking up out the window.

Wonders sometimes if he woulda made a good uncle.

But it won't happen. Not now. Maybe, this time last year, they had thoughts of finishing this, getting out of the business.

No normal life now. If the demon didn't get 'em, the law would. And no way in hell is he gonna raise a kid like he was raised.

Yeah, he thinks to himself, we'll be the last. John and Mary die with us.

He's not sure how he's supposed to feel about it.

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**13. we all float on**

Beating the hell outta some guy before he even knows what's going on. Just stopped for a drink. The guy was looking at Sam funny. Like he knew. And ever since Gordon (that sonuvabitch) he's been on edge. So it doesn't take much, just one off-hand comment and suddenly his fist is flying at the guy's face and the skin on his knuckle has split and he's screaming profanities and there are two other dudes and Sam pulling him up and away from the sorry bastard.

Sammy is stonily silent in the car, but every time he catches a glimpse of the oozing blood on the back of his hand (and it's only partially his and he's damn proud) in the flashing of another car's headlights he gets this rush and it's okay.

Sometimes he just needs the fight.

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**14. chess**

Doesn't wanna believe in God, because if there's some greater good than himself, what does that make him in this game?

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**15. duty**

Sammy and his promise can go screw themselves. And Dad and his warning. All of 'em. They can go find another soldier, because he's _through_ taking orders.

Won't let it happen, not to his baby brother. Needs Sam. Needs him like god only knows. All he's got left wrapped up in a six-foot-four frame sitting next to him hurtling down this highway at seventy miles an hour to somewhere else and a future that he's sure won't last long enough.

If he has to, he'll do it for him. He'll kill Sam's victims for him, accept his punishment.

_The things he's willing to do, the people he's willing to kill_.

They don't matter any more. All that matters is Sam.

It's the goddamn _prime directive_: save Sammy.

Never changed. Never will.

And if it means selling his soul, show him to the currency exchange.

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**16. rip**

Feels like there's a hole in him now. Feels like they missed a wound in the hospital, feels like his father's words took up residence there, festering.

While he held them in himself, they hurt him so badly. A constant pressure, and he felt them burn, trying to escape from that wound. And they did, finally. Spilled out of him, came out as twisted and perverse as the first time he heard them, scaring Sammy, scaring himself.

There's a space now where the words used to be. Now that the burn is gone, it's so cold. He worked so hard to keep his armor up, and now there's a huge corroded spot where he feels that the slightest provocation could kill him.

It's not good, he decides. He'll keep things to himself next time.

Lesson learned.


End file.
